1852-1922
Economist

Unlikely Beginning.

The turn of the twentieth century witnessed a major change from the economic theories that had dominated the nineteenth century. At the forefront of these new economic theories of consumerism, prosperity, and abundance was an unlikely "revolutionary." Simon N. Patten, by all accounts, was a lonely, solitary figure who insisted on social betterment. He was a farmer who settled in and helped revolutionize the business economy of the cities. He was a monastic and somewhat ascetic figure, yet insisted that happiness could be gleaned by all through materialism and consumerism. But he was also regarded as a fine teacher and a brilliant thinker, a man who discarded what he believed to be the limiting factors of the old economics and saw that something good could and would happen in the United States in the new century.

Education.

Patten was born in Cossumyuna...